


dirty old town

by manya



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Pre-Canon, Slow Burn, Witness Protection, i don't really have all too many tags to add yet and i'm shit at tagging anyway so!, neil isn't as good at coping as he thinks he is
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-22
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:28:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21525232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manya/pseuds/manya
Summary: It's been two long, monotonous years in the Federal Witness Protection Programme, and Neil needs a change in scenery.Europe is supposed to be an opportunity to break out of his rut; the last thing he expects is to find himself blinking at Kevin Day across the dining room table of a tiny guesthouse in the middle of nowhere in rural Ireland.
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 85
Kudos: 257





	1. The Guest House

**Author's Note:**

> hello! it's been a while but i guess i just can't stay away from aftg lol
> 
> so, in this au stuart makes a deal with the moriyama's after mary's death, and neil goes into witsec after giving info that puts nathan in prison. he's nineteen at this stage and exhausted, and hasn't gone to college! kevin has left the ravens, but he's taking a year out before he joins the foxes proper.
> 
> so yeah hope that clears things up !! i'm excited about this au, and i just wanna talk about where i grew up ahaha

The pink and blue neon koi fish flickers above the false pagoda arched door of the _Jade Garden_ Chinese takeaway. Neil watches the flickering neon reflection in the puddle at his feet and exhaled the final puff of smoke before he stubbs the cigarette against the damp brick wall he’s leaning on. It was a grey day in Dublin, and the smell of the rain mixes with the smell of oily rice noodles and egg-fried rice. Neil inhales deeply, stomach groaning loudly. He hadn’t eaten since the day before; truthfully, he hadn’t done much of anything since the day before.

He wasn’t even supposed to be there; Agent Browning had been polite when he had suggested that Neil might benefit from “a change in scenery”, but Neil had heard the latent order underneath the suggestion. It had been two seemingly endless and monotonous years in the Witness Protection programme, with the slight interruption of a reassignment per year. Neil was tired. It was Stuart’s suggestion that he come and live with him, following Browning’s ‘suggestion’, that gave Neil the push to pack up all of his meagre belongings and book a one-way flight to Europe.

Except, when he was sitting in front of a computer in a library in the suburb of Manhattan he had been living in for the past year, he couldn’t bring himself to actually book the flight. He had stared at the blue letters that spelled out ‘JFK TO LDN STANSTED’ for so long that his eyes went out of focus and all he could see was a vague pixelated mess. When his eyes focused again, he scrolled further down the page, and stopped when he came to Dublin.

He hadn’t told Stuart that he had deviated from their agreed plan; he was supposed to be arriving in London tomorrow at 9am. If Browning was still in charge of overseeing his case he would have freaked, but Neil was confident that Stuart had paid him an exorbitant amount of money to simply look the other way. Although, he couldn’t imagine Stuart being overly happy when he found out that Neil was not, in fact, going to be arriving in and starting a brand new life in London. Neil peers upwards, blinking through the misty precipitation as it landed in his eyes; the sky was dishwater grey, with no sign of sunlight at all. A friendly flight attendant had said jokingly “the sun doesn’t shine in Ireland!” in her pre-flight speech, and now Neil found himself wondering if it _had_ been a joke or not. The sky and the city both looked as though the colour had been leached from them by the steady onslaught of rain.

Two boys walk past him, leaving the Chinese takeaway with their arms full of styrofoam containers; they can’t be any older than Neil himself, and as they laugh and push at each other and the smell of the food drifts back to where Neil is huddled in the fake pagoda archway, he finds himself _wanting_. There’s nothing particularly special about the boys and Neil isn’t on the run anymore, so there really shouldn’t be any reason for his stomach to clench tight as he watches their ease, their companionship. It’s that, he thinks, that he misses so very much; his relationship with his mother was a complicated and twisted thing, but in the end they shared a mutual understanding. Perhaps the fight for survival had broken him, and he would never be able to connect with another person without the fear of imminent death breathing down his neck. But he didn’t want to think about that.

A bus rolls leisurely to a stop a few metres away, and Neil ducks out from the meagre shelter of the archway and into the rain. According to the bus timetable, the bus should have arrived fifteen minutes ago, but the driver seems blissfully ignorant of this fact as he steps off the bus and begins helping to heave people’s bags and suitcases into the luggage compartment. Neil joins the queue of people waiting to board the bus; it appears to be a healthy mixture of tourists and harried commuters. Out of sheer habit, he finds himself imitating the casual lean of the tourist standing two places ahead of him in the line; it’s not necessary for him to hide anymore, but he still feels sickeningly anxious in situations he stands out in.

“Got your ticket, lad?” the bus driver asks as Neil boards the bus.

Neil flashes him the day-pass he bought at the bus terminal and shoulders his duffel bag anxiously. He hadn’t had a chance to buy a map of Ireland, so when he was confronted with the LED display of destinations in the bus terminal he had been overwhelmed, and had simply chosen the first destination his eyes had alighted on.

The bus driver waves him on, and he crashes gratefully into a seat. He’s exhausted, and despite his best efforts he finds himself dozing as the bus engines grumble to life.

* * *

Neil wakes with a harsh jerk over an hour later. His knee crashes into the seat in front of him, and the lady occupying it turns around to give him a nasty look. Ignoring her, he peers out the bus window.

His doze had been restless, but even so he hadn’t noticed when the city and the motorway had given way to rolling green fields and mountains covered in purple heather in the distance. He found himself gaping at all the fluffy sheep roving around the fields, and had to consciously tear himself away from the sight. He had never seen sheep in real life before, despite his extensive travelling while on the run; his mother had always kept them close to big cities, where they would be harder to find in the populated crush of city life. Watching the rural scenery fly by as he traveled further and further from where he had come from sent a funny kind of thrill through him, and he had to sit back in his seat and force his eyes closed to try and stop himself from being so stupid.

It was another twenty five minutes or so of rolling greenery and distant mountain scenery interspersed with little houses and farms before the bus eventually trundled into a small village. Neil caught a glance of a sign that said _“Welcome to Roundwood!”_ and then below that in smaller font, _“The highest village in Ireland!”_ A little thrill of unease shot through him; in his unsteady doze, he hadn’t noticed the bus going up a mountain. How stupid of him.

When the driver parked the bus in front of yet another field and directly opposite a convenience store, Neil hurried off the bus after a small handful of tourists. They seemed content enough to simply take a few pictures of the _“The highest village in Ireland!”_ sign before clambering back onto the bus, but Neil hesitated. The final destination was Glendalough, which was (from what Neil had gathered from the brief conversation snippets he had managed to hear on the journey) just a big lake that seemed to attract a mass of American tourists. Maybe, he mused, it would be better for him to stay somewhere that _wasn’t_ so full of Americans. Running was a difficult habit to kick, after all, and hearing American accents in a country halfway across the world from the US had his nerves screaming.

As the bus trundled back to life and sped off into the distance, Neil took the time to walk leisurely up and down the village. It took, to his mixed surprise and alarm, little more than six minutes to walk from one end to the other. The entire village seemed to comprise of a single convenience store, a post office, a café, a florist, a primary school, a butchers (Neil tried to ignore the uneasy shiver that gripped him), a pharmacist, two takeaway restaurants, a hardware store, a couple of small houses, and a total of six pubs.

 _Well_ , thinks Neil wryly as he counted the sixth pub, _At least they’ve got their priorities straight._ The size of the village had taken him by surprise; he hadn’t quite counted on it being so _small_. For lack of anything else to do, Neil ducks into the post office, a tiny building painted lurid green. A woman with a pair of the thickest glasses Neil had ever seen sat behind the counter, and her head snapped up as soon as the bell over the door tinkled. “Yes?” she asks instantly, before Neil has even taken his first steps to approach the counter. “How can I help you?”

Neil pauses with one foot still in the air, rather taken aback by her eagerness. “Uh.” is all he manages.

“Oh, I’m sorry, dear,” the woman chuckles, then settles back into her seat. “It’s been a slow day.”

As Neil surveys the outdated posters on the wall and the thin layer of dust over the display of greeting cards, he gets the feeling that everyday might be a slow day in here. “That’s okay,” he shakes himself a little, and offers her a friendly smile. He thinks it might even look genuine. “I was wondering if you could help me with something, actually.”

He steps out of the post office a few minutes later feeling as though he’s made a terrible mistake. The population of the village is, according to the previous year’s census, 948 people. There was less than a thousand people living in this tiny place. It takes several deep breaths for him to swallow his rising panic; he isn’t on the run anymore. It doesn’t matter if he stays for a while in a tiny place where people will probably notice him. It’s all _fine_. Besides, Neil has always been quite the expert in digging whatever hole he’s in even deeper, so rather than ask the post office lady when the next tour bus would be passing, he asked her where he might find a place to stay. She had listed two pubs in the village which offered accommodation, and a guesthouse outside of the village. The idea of staying in a village so small with enough curious eyes watching him to make his skin crawl was enough to make up his mind. He set out along a road leading out of the village, clutching his new map in his hands. His duffle bag was a reassuring weight over his shoulder, and he inhaled deeply as he walked. For the first time in quite a while, he felt like his breaths were coming easy.

It didn’t take long for that to change. The road he had taken out of the village quickly became an incline, and the weight of his duffle bag became a punishing pressure on his back. Why the _fuck_ hadn’t the post office lady told him that the walk included making his way up a _goddamn mountain_? The houses that had lined the road for the first mile had long since disappeared into the distance; now the road was badly paved, and lined with ferns and thorny undergrowth. 

The fields were back. Why were there so many goddamn fields?

Sweat trickles down the back of Neil’s neck and slips down his back. His breathing was laboured now, and he began taking deep breaths to try and control them. At the very least, the air is clear and crisp. The polluted air of New York that he’d left behind seems lifetimes ago.

When he meets a crossroads he stalls for at least five minutes, peering into the distance in both directions as though he might somehow be able to determine what road he should take. The determining factor is simple; one of the roads keeps going up an incline, and the other leads into a dip lined with towering trees. He takes the downhill road, and likes to imagine that he can hear his overworked thighs thanking him.

The trees form a deep green canopy over his head as he crosses an old stone bridge over a stream. The sounds of the water rushing over rocks and the birdsong over his head seems to loosen something deep inside of him. He finds himself smiling, of all things. He hopes nobody chooses this moment to drive down the road - he imagines he looks a sight, covered in sweat and grinning to himself like a madman as he watches birds fly around the trees.

His smile lasts until he looks back to the road and sees that it has begun to rise _uphill again_.

The rest of the journey is spent with his head down and his eyes on the road. It’s slightly easier that way. A thick strip of grass grows down the middle of the road, pushing through the tarmac and waving in the light breeze. It’s short, likely kept that way by the underbellies of vehicles, but little daisies grow here and there. He can see a few small houses with massive gardens, and one building mostly hidden behind trees that he can’t quite make out, but other than a brief check to see whether or not they’re the guest house he barely looks up.

It’s just over an hour and a half from he left the village that he looks up and is greeted with the blessed, _blessed_ sight of a tiny wooden sign that reads _Lough Dan Guest House: 0.1km_. Invigorated, he crosses another much smaller wooden bridge over a much smaller stream, and tackles the next hill with as much vigour as he can manage (which is, admittedly, not much).

This hill is steeper than the others, and the tarmac of the road has given way to caked mud and stones. Neil’s already ragged sweatpants are gross at the hems with dust and dirt and he knows that his face must be flushed and damp, but when he crests the hill and spots the white house perched delicately atop a grassy mound and framed with purple flowers he feels a swooping relief at the bottom of his stomach that almost knocks him off his feet. He’s getting soft, he realises with some disappointment. He’ll really need to work on his endurance levels.

The closer he gets to the house, the nicer he realises it is. It’s a small white farmhouse surrounded by weeping willows and flower bushes. There’s lavender planted all around the front steps, and Neil can see dairy cows grazing in an adjacent field. It’s… peaceful. The porch creaks when he steps onto it, but the door he slides open is soundless. Inside is just as pretty as the outside; it’s all wood paneling and huge windows, offering a view of the collection of fields Neil had trudged by. He had to admit they looked quite nice from this angle, with the sun peeking through the thick curtain of clouds and lighting the colours of the countryside vibrant.

“You’re tracking mud on my floor, lad.”

Neil startles hard, whirling around so fast he almost loses his balance. The tiniest old woman he’s ever seen is standing in a doorway, peering at him. Her height alone was another shock; she couldn’t be more than 4’9, although her glower was impressive enough to account for another two or three inches in intimidation factor.

“Oh.” he says stupidly. He toes out of his trainers as quickly as possible, perturbed by the old woman’s scowl.

She nods her approval as he stacks his sneakers neatly against the wall by the door, and then totters over to a large cushy couch and sinks into it. She picks up a large black book and peers at him again. “You’re looking for a room, I take it?” her accent is slower and thicker than the accents he had heard in Dublin, and it takes him a moment to parse what she had said.

“Yes, please, ma’am.”

When she looks at him again, there’s amusement in the craggy lines of her face. “Another fuckin’ Yank.” 

Neil was so startled by her cursing (she was so _tiny_ , it just didn’t seem right) that he barely catches her meaning. “Uh. Yeah. I’m from-” he pauses then, unsure of what to say. The lies that used to flow so easily off his tongue come slowly these days. A side-effect of avoiding all human contact for a year and a half, he supposes. “The US.” he finishes lamely.

The old woman just raises a straggly eyebrow at that, but thankfully says nothing. “Right.” she says, “For how long?”

“Since I was born, I guess.”

“I meant,” the old woman says, eyes closing as though praying for patience, “How long will you be staying?”

“Oh. I don’t know yet,” Neil confesses. He should really call Uncle Stuart before he commits to anything more than a day or two.

“Name?”

“Neil Josten.” he says quietly. The name is his permanently now and has been since he first joined Witness Protection, but he still feels that pleasant little thrill every time he says it out loud.

The old woman scribbles in the book, then sets it down and looks up at him. “My name is Eileen, and this is my guest house,” she says with an air of a rehearsed speech. “Breakfast is served every morning at nine o’clock sharp. Dinner is served at three, and supper at around six or seven. You’re welcome to go for a nose around the kitchen if you find yourself hungry at any stage. Please keep the noise down, don’t go terrorising the cows, don’t go about making a mess. Right?”

“Yes.” Neil agrees quickly. He feels like she can smell his fear.

“I’ll take you to your room now, then. Come on.” she says, and he scrambles up to follow her.

The room she leads him to is behind one of eight doors in a long hallway painted buttery yellow. It’s just as lovely as the rest of the house; the double bed is fitted with soft cream sheets, and the windows are framed with curtains the same buttery yellow colour as the hallway. It transforms the grey quality of the light outside into something bright and cheery. Neil sets his duffel down on the floor, grateful to be rid of the weight. His shoulder aches.

He takes a turn around the room, socked feet thumping softly against the wooden floor. He’s smiling when he turns back to Eileen, who’s waiting at the door. “It’s great. Thank you.”

She smiles back at him for the first time, her entire craggy face lifting, “Good stuff. I’ll let you get settled, if you need anything just give a roar. Myself or me nephew will be happy to help.”

Neil nods and watches as she closes the door behind herself. As soon as she’s gone, he locks the door (old habits), squirms out of his dirty clothes, and sprawls on the bed in his underwear. The soft sheets against his skin feel like heaven, and he sighs his exhaustion into the mattress.

* * *

When he wakes up he’s groggy and extremely disoriented. He doesn’t remember falling asleep, but he can see out the window that the sun is beginning to dip low into the trees. He lays there for another moment or so, basking in the softness of the bedding, before his stomach lets out a rumble like a chainsaw. Unable to remember the last time he had eaten anything substantial, he slips out of the bed and starts rooting around for a clean sweatshirt and sweatpants.

Once he’s dressed, he unlocks the door and slips out into the hallway. There are no windows in the hall, but there’s a tall lamp at the end by the last door that bathes the whole corridor in a dim golden light. Neil notices all the framed photographs along the walls for the first time, but his attention skips over them in favour of the muffled voices he can hear coming from the direction he had come this afternoon. Socked feet padding near soundlessly, he emerged back into the tidy little living room from earlier. The voices are coming through an open door along the left wall, and he creeps over and peers in a little apprehensively.

It’s a cosy little dining room, with a warm brown dining table and chairs overlooking a tall window that looked out onto rolling green hills and a beautiful view of the sunset. Eileen is sitting at the table with a dark haired young man who appears to be talking at length about something that Eileen very clearly has no interest in. She sips at a cup of tea and grunts absently and her eyes wander until they come to rest on the open doorway as she spots Neil. 

“Ah!” she puts down her cup and cuts straight across whatever the young man with her had been saying. “You’re awake.”

“Yes.” says Neil, feeling rather stupid. He was still exhausted, and his mind definitely wasn’t working at full capacity, although Eileen doesn’t seem to mind. “I was just wondering if I could get something to eat, please?”

Lined face breaking into a grin, Eileen aims a sharp elbow at the man with her. “Looks like _some_ Americans have manners, eh? I’ll get you something. You sit down, pet.”

Neil’s response dies on his tongue as the dark-haired man turns around to watch Eileen go, giving him the first look at his face. _No_ , he thought desperately. _No no no no no._ How was this even possible? How could he have found him _here_? He feels as though he had just been punched very hard in the stomach and then been flipped upside down. It’s suddenly very, very difficult to breathe.

In this tiny guesthouse in the middle of nowhere in Ireland, Kevin Day sits at the dining room table and blinks at him.


	2. First Meetings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, so i just want to say thank you SO much for all the wonderful feedback from the first chapter! seeing all the lovely comments has me hyped for this story, i'm really glad people seem to like this/be excited by the premise of it. i wasn't sure if it was an idea people would be into, so the feedback was really helpful to me!

The food is good and the dining room is comfortable and bright, but Neil is so tense in his seat that he feels as though he’s going to fall right out of it. Across the table, Kevin is eating a chicken sandwich and leafing through the newspaper Eileen left behind. He hasn’t paid the slightest bit of attention to Neil besides a quick nod as he sat down.

Neil should leave it alone. He should _leave_ , period. He’s just been smacked in the face with a scenario that, while not the _worst_ out of all the possibilities, was still pretty damn _bad_. He’s not on the run anymore; he hasn’t had the Moriyama’s breathing down his neck ever since they came to an agreement with Stuart, and his father has been in jail for several years now. That doesn’t mean he has to be stupid about things though - there’s no reason for him to put himself in a situation where he draws the attention of someone who has very public ties to the Moriyama family. Or at least someone who _had_ very public ties to the Moriyama family, before disappearing from the public eye.

What was Kevin _doing_ here?

Despite himself, and perhaps emboldened by the utter lack of both interest and recognition he has displayed so far, Neil gestures at the page Kevin is reading. “The Miami Bears are having a woeful season.”

The speed with which Kevin’s head snaps up to look at him is scary considering his utter disinterest from before. “You follow Exy?”

“Yeah.” says Neil, then adds on unconvincingly, “A little.”

“Do you play?”

The intensity of Kevin’s bottle green gaze has Neil feeling as though he’s made a mistake drawing his attention onto him, but it’s too late for regret now. “No,” he says. Kevin’s expression drops a little in disappointment, and Neil finds that all rational thought has fled completely from his head when he continues with, “But I used to. Years ago.”

“Yeah?” Kevin asks, interest reignited. “Why did you stop? You could have tried to play at collegiate level.”

Neil looks down at his food and pushes some of the broccoli around with his fork. “I didn’t go to college,” he says, then takes a quick mouthful of food, “I played a little in high school.”

“Why didn’t you go to college?”

A little surprised at Kevin’s total lack of tact, Neil just blinks for a moment before recovering himself. “Uh. I just didn’t have the opportunity, I guess.”

“You guess?” 

Annoyed now, Neil frowns back at him. “Yeah, I guess.”

The oddly tense little moment is broken when Eileen potters back into the room. Kevin looks away, and in the absence of his intense stare Neil relaxes a little. After a beat of silence, Kevin speaks again. “Do you think you’d be any good?”

Neil blinks, bewildered, over a mouthful of potato. “At college? I guess it would depend on what I was studying. I don’t know.”

The look Kevin gives him in return is equally bewildered, as though it’s Neil who’s being a complete idiot and derailing the conversation. “At _Exy_.”

From behind them, Eileen scoffs loudly. “Do you talk about anything else, fool boy? He’s a _guest_ , don’t be annoying him.”

“I’m not annoying him!” Kevin says indignantly, then quickly looks to Neil for backup.

“Right.” Neil says, a little weakly. “Not annoying me at all.”

Eileen raises a brow, entirely unconvinced, and delivers a glass of orange cordial diluted with water to Neil. “Just tell him to shut up if he’s bothering you.” she says, drawing a little laugh from Neil and a scowl from Kevin before she pads back out of the room.

Undeterred, Kevin starts up again as soon as she’s left. “If you played now, would you be any good?”

Exasperated, Neil put down his knife and fork. “I don’t know, Kevin. It’s been a long time since I played.”

He realises his mistake as soon as he sees Kevin go still. “You know me?” he asks slowly, and very, very carefully. His expression had stiffened and he had leaned back in his chair, suddenly guarded.

Picking up his fork, Neil shovels another forkful of food into his mouth and swallows, hoping for time. “Like I said, I follow Exy. Everyone knows who you are.”

It’s a poor excuse, but some of the tension seems to leak out of Kevin’s posture. “Right.” he fiddles with the newspaper for a moment, then abruptly says, “Not everyone. Not here.”

Cautious now, Neil asks quietly, “Is that why you’re here? In Ireland?”

“It’s one reason.” says Kevin, before he looks at Neil and frowns in what looks like confusion. “I don’t know your name.”

“It’s Neil.” he says. “I’m Neil.” He realises it probably wasn’t necessary to say it twice, but the bizarreness of introducing himself to Kevin Day all these years later make the entire situation seem more than a little surreal. Is this even _happening_?

Kevin nods, then gets to his feet and tucks the newspaper under his arm. “I’ll see you around, Neil. We’ll talk Exy again tomorrow.”

“Will we?” asked Neil, amused despite himself. It’s funny, how little Kevin has changed.

The look on Kevin’s face says _’obviously’_ , though he doesn’t deign to say it out loud. “Don’t be late for breakfast, Aunt Eileen hates that.”

And then he’s gone, but Neil’s brain is still stuck on _Aunt Eileen_. It explains some things, at least, but he can’t figure out why life seems to have it out for him so bad. Out of all the places he could have gone in this country, he ends up in the _one place_ that’s run by Kevin Day’s aunt? 

“What the fuck?” he whispers to the ceiling, the whole encounter just beginning to catch up to him. He wonders if maybe he should have stayed in one of the pubs in the village after all, but he’s too tired to seriously entertain that train of thought. The food had helped, but the short nap he had taken wasn’t near enough sleep for him to feel normal again.

He brings his plate and cutlery into the kitchen and cleans up after himself, before returning to his room to retrieve his cigarettes and his phone. He makes his way outside then and sits on the porch; it’s May, but it’s cold and Neil draws his over-sized sweatshirt around him tight. Though it’s pushing 9pm, the sun is only now dipping down low behind the trees on the horizon. Neil surveys the view of the darkening landscape and takes a deep breath of the chill, clear air. He fiddles with the phone for a moment, before exhaling sharply and pressing dial.

It takes barely two rings before Stuart answers the phone with a curt, “Hello?”

“Hey, Uncle Stuart.” 

“Na- Neil.” Though Stuart catches himself, Neil still finds himself flinching at the almost-slip. “You getting ready to head to the airport?”

Tilting his head back to stare at the stars as they start to poke through the dusky twilight sky, Neil chews his lip. “I’m not going to London.”

There’s a long beat of silence.

“Explain.” says Stuart, quietly.

Neil searches for words, but his thoughts are a jumble. How can he verbalise what he’s thinking when he feels like all the important parts of him are all tangled up on the inside? “I know you want to help, bringing me over to you. But I don’t think that’s what I need, right now.”

“What do you need?” Stuart asks quickly. In all fairness, Stuart has been good to him. His deal with the Moriyama’s had saved Neil’s life, and he was always quick to offer his help whenever Neil needed it. He feels guilty, treating his uncle like this when he was the only one who successfully pulled him out of his life on the run, the first one to show him any sort of kindness in years. But he also feels broken on the inside; the federal Witness Protection programme gave him a shiny new passport and identification paperwork, but he still felt like he was only playing at being a real person.

“I don’t really know.” his voice is brittle, but he can’t help the self-deprecating smile that tugs at his lips. “I’ll tell you when I find it, I guess.”

“Where are-” Stuart starts, then cuts himself off. There’s a brief silence where the only sound is his soft breaths warped with static over the phone. “Are you safe?”

Neil considers telling him about Kevin, but he doesn’t know how Stuart would react and he doesn’t want to give this up yet. He gazes across the hills as the light darkens to a purpley blue and says, “Yeah, I’m safe. It’s nice here.”

Stuart sighs. “You’re gonna give me an ulcer, Neil.”

Despite himself, Neil laughs. “Thanks for everything.” he says quietly. “Sorry for dropping this on you with no warning. It wasn’t exactly a well-thought out plan. It’s working out alright so far, though.”

“Story of your life, kid.” Stuart sighs again, but he doesn’t sound angry. Just tired and a little sad. Neil thinks his uncle understands, on some level, what he’s struggling to put into words. “You should have told me.” When Neil doesn’t respond, there’s another few moments of silence before Stuart says, “I’m not angry. I just- next time, you _tell_ me before you do something like this. We can talk it out, yeah?”

“Yeah.” Neil croaks. And that’s that. They don’t stay on the phone for much longer, with everything having been said. Neil hangs up with the promise that he’ll keep Stuart updated, and that he’ll be smart and stay safe. Stuart seems to take that particular promise with a grain of salt, but considering the circumstances that seems fair enough.

Neil sets his phone down on the porch and takes another deep breath, feeling his lungs expand against his ribs. The air is heavy with moisture, and Neil thinks he can almost feel it pressing against his skin. The landscape is transformed in the dark; the trees are just black smudges against the hills, and in the distance he can see dots of light from far away houses. Birds call to each other in the clump of trees to the side of the house, and the wind rustles the leaves into a _whoosh_ of sound. Neil can’t remember the last time he felt so present in his own body; he’s attuned to every sound, every movement in the dark.

That’s why he catches the minute movement behind him so quickly.

It takes everything in him to stay where he is instead of jumping to his feet like a lunatic. Slowly, muscles straining with tension, he turns his head. There’s a man in the doorway of the guesthouse, just looking at him. An unlit cigarette hangs from his lips, which are stretched in a grotesque mockery of a grin. Blond hair hangs in a tangle of unkempt curls over his forehead, but it’s not long enough to cover his eyes. Though the smile is manic, his gaze is dark and unnervingly penetrating.

Neil’s stomach sinks. He recognises him.

It would figure that he couldn’t meet Kevin Day without also running into his guard dog. 

Andrew Minyard fishes a lighter out of his pocket and lights the cigarette without breaking eye contact. “You’re the new guest.”

“Guess I am.” Neil says. He’s impressed with how steady his own voice is, considering all he wants to do right now is get up and run into the copse of trees beside the house and wait for Andrew to go back inside. He figures that might make him look a bit suspicious though, so he tries to play it cool.

Andrew exhales a cloud of smoke. The smell of it lingers in the cool air, simultaneously relaxing Neil and making him tense further. Grinning, Andrew offers him a cigarette. Neil takes it with a cautious word of thanks, and allows Andrew to light it off his own. Once he’s taken a drag of it, Andrew speaks again. “Kevin was talking about you.”

“Yeah?” Neil says on an exhale of smoke. He holds the cigarette close to his face, but doesn’t take another drag. “We were talking about Exy.”

“You know him.”

“Everyone knows Kevin Day.” Neil sighs. He’s so tired. It’s been _such_ a long day; what did he do to deserve this?

“Not here.” Andrew’s words echo Kevin’s from earlier, and Neil turns around fully to face him. He’s stepped out further onto the porch, standing just behind Neil’s shoulder. His hands fidget and his foot taps, and his gaze darts from Neil to the surrounding countryside. Minyard’s court-ordered medication and induced mania was well documented in Exy circles, yet despite his apparent inattention, Neil notices him cataloguing every move he makes. Even drugged, Andrew Minyard is a dangerous beast.

 _Stop_ , Neil thinks with a frown, _Not everyone is out to get you anymore_.

And yet, something about Minyard sets off warning bells in the primal part of his mind that he’d learned to trust at a very early age. 

“He said something like that himself.” Neil acknowledges, dropping his gaze back down to his cigarette and trying to appear unthreatening. “I didn’t mean to upset him or anything. Sorry, I should have known that he was here to get away from being recognised and stuff.”

There’s a pause, and Neil hopes Andrew buys it. When he drops down to sit on the porch next to him and asks “What are you doing here?”, Neil allows his shoulders to relax and his eyes to widen.

“What do you mean?”

Andrew narrows his eyes at him. The gesture is strange in combination with his toothy grin. “Neil, Neil, Neil. Josten. I didn’t realise it was an ambiguous question.”

“Things just got on top of me back home. I was overwhelmed, and it was time for a break. I decided on Ireland at random, actually, but I think it was a good choice. This is a great place to find yourself, right?” he gestures at the scenery all around them, then blinks innocently at Andrew. He knows how he looks - his hair is still fluffy and sleep-rumpled from his insufficient nap earlier, and his eyes are wide and bright and guileless.

It definitely has some sort of effect on Andrew, though the minute tensing of his jaw and twitch of his nose would have been easy to miss had Neil not been looking. “You expect me to believe you just _happened_ to show up here and immediately recognise Kevin Day?” Andrew takes another drag of his cigarette.

Neil shrugs placidly. It was almost amusing, to be telling the full truth for once but to still be mistrusted. Usually, he was pegged as a liar for good reason. “He is famous, isn’t he? Just because Exy isn’t big over here, doesn’t mean _no one_ is going to recognise him.”

“Nowhere is safe from Exy maniacs, hm?”

Neil laughs and leans back on one hand. “I guess not. I think I disappointed him already though - I don’t play.”

Andrew snorts; his fidgeting had begun to slow, and the frenzied gleam in his eye had muted somewhat. Even his smile seemed to have lost its sharpness, as though it was fading around the edges. “Kevin has already decided differently. You dug that hole yourself.”

The idea of playing Exy with Kevin Day is equal parts terrifying and exhilarating, and he has to put the idea aside quickly before it shows on his face. Instead, he observes the changes in Andrew’s demeanor out of the corner of his eye and decides that he’s too tired for this. If Andrew is coming down from his forced high, Neil’s not so sure he wants to be around him - he’s astute and aggressive enough while medicated, but sober he would be a real threat. “I didn’t catch your name.” He smiles as disarmingly as possible; he’s had practice charming the old ladies in his old apartment building into giving him free casseroles, so he knows his dimples are on show and that his eyes are crinkling up. His elderly neighbours used to think he was adorable - he hopes it’s enough to ease Andrew’s obvious mistrust.

One of Andrew’s eyes twitches and his brow dips down a little, but that’s the only reaction Neil gets. “Andrew.”

“Andrew.” says Neil, making a show out of testing the name out on his tongue. He smiles again, then gets to his feet. “Lovely to meet you, but I’m beat. It’s been a long day. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I guess you will.” Andrew sing songs, but his smile has slipped almost completely off his face and his eyes are dark. 

Neil tries not to shiver, and heads back inside. He craves sleep badly; Kevin and Andrew were a problem he could think about tomorrow. Between the two of them and Eileen, Neil couldn’t remember the last time he’d had so much human interaction. It was a little overwhelming.

He was just so _tired_. Witsec was supposed to put an end to his running, but instead he feels as though he just stagnated. This was supposed to be a fresh start; he wasn’t going to let Kevin Day ruin this for him, not when he didn’t even recognise him. Stuart’s deal with the Moriyamas wasn’t a perfect protection, but it was surely enough for him to feel safe enough to stay.

Despite that, as he lay in bed he felt the phantom ghosts of his mother’s hand fisted in the roots of his hair and her hissed words in his ears. ‘ _Stupid_ ’. It takes him a long time to fall asleep.


	3. Kevin Day and the Great Sheep Caper

By the time Neil wakes up, it’s nearing 11am. He groans into his pillow, remembering Kevin’s warning about breakfast being served at 9am. He guesses he’ll just have to make do with a piece of fruit or something.

He climbs out of bed and shivers a little in the cool air, before moving to open up the curtains and let some light into the room. He feels a little more invigorated at the thought of seeing the countryside in the daylight again, fully rested and with an altogether more positive perspective.

“ _Mraaah_ ”

“ _Gah!_ ” Neil jerks back, startled.

A sheep is peering in the window. Black-faced and white-woolled, it stares placidly at him with dark eyes. Ridged horns frame its face in intimidatingly large curls.

“What the fuck?” Neil asks it, bewildered.

The ram doesn’t answer, just continues to stare.

Neil stares back for a very long moment, before realising that having a staring contest with the sheep isn’t going to get him anywhere and he should probably get dressed. He has to tug the curtain closed again though, because the gaze is unnerving and he feels uncomfortably _watched_. He supposes the ram probably doesn’t care about his scars, and it probably isn’t _intentionally_ being creepy, but it’s pretty damn creepy all the same. Once he’s thrown on a new hoodie and a clean pair of sweatpants, he pulls the curtain open again.

The ram is still there, peering in over the windowsill. Neil looks back at it for a long moment, before shrugging and walking to the door. He pauses with his hand on the door handle, uncomfortably aware that the ram is still staring. He doesn’t even think its _blinked_ yet. “Um,” he says, feeling exceptionally foolish, “I’m going for breakfast.” He waits for a moment but the ram doesn’t acknowledge that he said anything, so he slips out of the room and makes his way to the kitchen. 

Kevin is sprawled on one of the cushy couches in the open sitting area with a book. Andrew is lying on the other one with his eyes closed; he could have been asleep, if not for the relentless jiggling of his left foot. When Neil steps out of the hallway, Kevin looks up from his book and frowns at him. “You missed breakfast.”

“There’s-” Neil starts and stops, because he realises how ridiculous he’s about to sound. Collecting himself, he continues, “There’s a sheep looking in my bedroom window.”

He expects Kevin to laugh or snort or sneer. What he _doesn’t_ expect is for Kevin’s eyes to narrow into a squint and for him to say in a voice that is almost a snarl “ _Napper Tandy_.”

On the other couch Andrew starts to laugh without opening his eyes.

Neil looks slowly between the two, nerves jangling. “What?”

Snapping his book closed, Kevin jumps off the couch and shouts, “Aunt Eileen!”

Lost, Neil looks to Andrew, who has finally opened his eyes. Andrew just grins at him. His eyes are bright today, almost like a sheer gloss has been applied over them. It makes Neil realise that Andrew must have been closer to sobriety last night than he had thought.

“What are you shouting about?” Eileen roars back, appearing in the doorway to the kitchen. Her eyes alight on Neil and narrow instantly - the similarity to Kevin that moment is so startling that Neil almost does a double-take. “You missed breakfast.”

“I’m sorr-”

She waves a hand impatiently, cutting him off. “Well, come on then. Get some food into you before you keel over, you look like you’ve been on a hunger strike.”

Neil thinks that is a bit uncharitable, but it probably isn’t a lie. He knows he hasn’t been taking the best care of himself, and for the first time he tries to look at himself through someone else’s eyes; his hair is long and unkempt (probably a little tangled at the back too, since he doesn’t own a hair brush and tends to just finger comb it) and his dye job is pretty dismal, his clothes have seen better days, and the dark circles under his eyes refuse to budge. He’s dropped some weight in the past few months too, a byproduct of living off of instant ramen and fruit. As a result, his hoodie hangs off his frame more than it probably should. He really hadn’t thought that he was doing too badly, all things considered, but under Eileen’s piercing gaze he finds himself shrinking a little, embarrassed. She gestures him into the kitchen and he follows, a little hesitantly. He can’t tell if she’s angry or not since her face just seems set into a permanent little scowl. Still, she was several inches away from five feet and _at least_ eighty years old, so he was pretty secure in the knowledge that he could outrun her if things went south. 

To his surprise, there’s a plate of food under the grill. It’s piled high with eggs, slices of bacon, sausages, toast, baked beans in tomato sauce, and two little pudding-like things. He had figured that since he hadn’t shown up to breakfast, he wouldn’t be fed. The sight of the food that’s obviously been set aside for him is a bit of a shock. Eileen take it and smacks it down on the table in the dining room and shoos him into a seat. “I want to see that plate cleared.” she says. It’s clearly an order, and Neil starts eating a little nervously.

Kevin has followed them from the sitting area and is hovering in the archway to the kitchen. “Aunt Eileen.” he says insistently, “Napper Tandy is back.”

Eileen had been watching him eat with an expression of mild satisfaction, but it crumbles into a frown at Kevin’s words. “Already? What day is it?”

“It’s only Tuesday!”

“He was outside my window.” Neil supplies helpfully, swallowing a mouthful of beans. 

Andrew appears at Kevin’s shoulder. Even though the meds seems to freeze him in a permanently hyper-excited state of mania, genuine amusement seemed to be bleeding through. “He knows you’re new.” he mock-whispers, then giggles to himself.

“He shouldn’t be here until at least Thursday.” Eileen says to herself, ignoring Andrew’s comment. She looks to Kevin, “You’ll have to go over to Seán Gallagher and tell him to take the bleeding thing back again. Tell him to make sure he fucking locks him up this time.”

Kevin’s face drops. “Me?”

“Well, _I’m_ hardly about to go galloping over the fields to Seán Gallagher’s farm, am I?” she gestures at herself, and then at the lower half of Andrew’s body, and then over at Neil, “Besides, you’re the only one with the legs for it.” From behind Kevin, Andrew’s smile twitches a little, but he doesn’t contest it.

“But-” Kevin looks around the room, as though hoping for someone to jump out of a cupboard and volunteer to take his place. “But he always chases me.” he says, voice small and sort of pathetic.

Neil laughs a little without meaning to, but it doesn’t matter because it’s drowned out by Andrew’s cackling. “Better run fast, Kevin!” he crows, visibly delighting in Kevin’s disgruntled expression.

“Is, uh,” Neil begins after chewing thoughtfully for a moment, “Is this a regular thing? The sheep?”

Andrew is still laughing and Kevin is sulking, so it’s Eileen that answers, “Old Napper Tandy comes by every week or two. Seán Gallagher just can’t seem to keep him on the farm. Fool man.” she adds, scowling. Glancing between Eileen and Kevin when they’re both scowling is unnerving. They both have the same green eyes and wide mouth, and when their faces pull down into that frown it becomes exceedingly obvious that they’ve both been moulded from the same clay. Their chins even jut out at the same angle. Neil can’t help but wonder at how strong the Day genetics are. He wonders if Kevin has anything of his father in him at all.

Neil finishes the last piece of toast, then stands to carry his plate to the kitchen. He hasn’t taken more than two steps before the plate has been whipped out of his hands. “I can do that!” he protests as Eileen pushes past Kevin to get to the kitchen sink. The speed she moved at startled him, and he can’t help but start to revise the previous assumptions he had made based on her age. 

“You’re a guest.” she said firmly, scrubbing the plate rapidly and drying it just as fast before firing it into a cupboard. She turns back and points firmly at Kevin. “Get going now. I want Napper Tandy gone before I get back.”

Kevin makes a face, then turns to Andrew. “Come on.”

“Andrew is coming with me to the shop.” says Eileen.

“What?” Kevin turns to stare at his aunt, indignant. “Why?”

“We’re getting more Dip Dabs.” Andrew grins, looking exceptionally self-satisfied.

Jaw tight, Kevin just glares at him. It looks as though he’s making a great effort to bite back whatever it is he wants to say. After a moment his gaze drifts slowly over to where Neil is still standing watching the exchange. Eileen catches his look and briskly says, “You are absolutely not to ask Neil, he is a guest. Now get going or _I’ll_ be the one to chase you across the fields.”

It’s not a particularly compelling threat given her size and age, but Neil can’t help but believe that she’ll make a decent effort at following through. Either way, Kevin finally leaves to start putting on his shoes.

Neil follows him, curious as to how this is going to play out. He had been hoping to go for a walk to try and familiarise himself with the surrounding landscape, but he supposes watching Kevin get chased across some fields by an angry farm animal will be a good start to the day.

“How fast can a sheep run?” asks Neil out loud, not even sure who he’s addressing.

Andrew steps up to his shoulder and snickers. “Faster than Kevin.” It’s odd, how he could be so protective over Kevin yet so gleeful at the thought of getting to see him get run down by a rogue ram. He pops his tongue in his mouth and then rolls his head around to look at Neil with a grin. “Want anything from the store?”

“Uh- I’m okay, thanks.” says Neil, a little confused. He’s distracted then by Kevin approaching the front door and stepping onto the porch. “He’s not really gonna get chased, is he?”

Andrew doesn’t answer except to laugh, but he moves closer to the door. From the looks of it, he’s trying to get a better view. Neil hesitates for a moment, torn between wanting to maintain as much distance as possible between himself and Andrew Minyard and desperately wanting to see Kevin Day make an absolute spectacle out of himself. His indecision only lasts a moment before he’s joining Andrew at the door.

Kevin is stretching his hamstrings and casting increasingly nervous glances all around him. He glances back just to whisper, “Do you think he’s still at the bedroom window?”

“No,” Andrew speaks before Neil, bouncing on his toes, “He’s right there, by the trees.”

Sure enough, when Neil looks to where Andrew is pointing he sees the ram standing there nibbling at the grass. With the little copse of trees behind him and the sun shining overhead, it looks like it could be a scene from a postcard. Neil tilts his head. “I don’t think you need to run, he looks-” 

Kevin took off at a sprint before Neil could even finish his sentence, so he shut his mouth with a little frown. How dramatic.

“Wait for it.” whispers Andrew. He has his phone in his hand, and he appears to be recording Kevin as he makes straight for a wooden fence.

They don’t have to wait long. Kevin has only just vaulted over the fence when a white shape races past the house and barrels after him, bleating excitedly. “Oh!” Neil blurts, because he honestly wasn’t expecting the sheep to be that fast.

Napper Tandy bounds right over the fence like a champion race-horse. “Go faster, Kevin!” Andrew cackles, holding his phone up to his face and zooming in on Kevin’s back as he flees from the rapidly approaching sheep.

Neil stares after the swiftly moving figures, a little dumbfounded. It feels a bit like a fever dream.

Footsteps sound from behind them, then Eileen appears at their shoulders. “He made it off alright then, did he?” she asks, peering after Kevin as he runs. “Good. Ready to go, Andrew?”

Neil looks at them both as they move past him, heading for the little red car in the driveway. “Is Kevin going to be alright?” he asks doubtfully; it’s obvious Kevin has done this before, but the whole situation is so unusual that he can’t help but ask. “What if Napper Tandy catches up to him?”

Eileen snorts as she opens the driver’s side door, “Napper Tandy’s harmless, the wee fucker just likes to play chase. Kevin will be fine. He’s got a good set of running legs on him.”

“Right.” is all Neil manages. He watches them get in the car, and once they’ve driven off down the lane he returns inside to go get his running shoes.

His second day in Ireland isn’t going exactly to plan, but it’s not going _badly_ either. At least, he doesn’t think it is. He supposes he doesn’t have a particularly good standard for normal.

* * *

Neil stretches out on the grass and sighs.

He had found a gate nestled in between the hedgerow a little way down the lane from the guest house, and behind the gate was a worn dirt path. It must have rained again overnight though, because the path was muddy and wet. Not having a problem with this, Neil had slipped through the gate and set off through the slippery mud.

At first the path had been surrounded by trees and interspersed with rocks and tree roots; it made for an almost deadly walking combination, but Neil had picked his way carefully along. Then, a little bit down the way the trees to the left had fallen away to reveal a steep hill with a sharp drop into a lake below. Neil had to stop and take a deep breath; the lake below was placid and dark, and the mountains that rose around it seemed to form a little cradle. It was stunning. Neil had stood there for a long moment, taking in deep breaths of the sharp, clear air and gazing at the uneven mountains and black water. He could have probably stayed there for hours, but he eventually forced himself to keep moving.

He had continued down the path a while, eventually coming to another wooden gate that he bypassed easily. When the path began to dip into a downward incline Neil was forced to slow down or risk slipping in the mud and sliding all the way down to the bottom.

The path had widened and was made more of stone than of mud, but Neil remained cautious as he made his way downhill. On either side of the path water trickled in ditches, the sound of it tinkling over the stones mixing with the birdsong echoing from the trees to create a surprisingly musical ambient noise. Neil closed his eyes for a moment before remembering that he needed them to see and quickly opening them back up again, almost tripping up on a stray rock.

When the steep incline finally bottoms out, Neil finds himself looking across a valley. A mountain rises up to his right, and to his left is a pine forest that seems to stretch for miles; separating the two in the middle is a large stretch of vibrant green grass.

He jumps over a little stream, passes the crumbling remains of a little stone house, and then begins trekking over the fields. The smell of rain and wet earth mixing with the scent of wildflowers growing in the grass creates a heady sort of perfume that Neil keeps gulping down in deep breaths. It feels like they’re the first proper breaths he’s been able to take in years; how could he not have noticed that he couldn’t breathe?

He crosses at least four fields before he comes to a river and can go no further, but he finds he doesn’t want to anymore. Beside the river is a circle of huge oak trees, towering overhead and creating a dark, cool shelter with their foliage. The grass inside the circle is a little damp, but the trees overhead has kept most of the rain away so it’s not too bad. Neil falls back and stretches out, feeling the burn in his calves and becoming aware of the fact that his running shoes are soaked through with water and mud. 

He sighs, not quite able to drum up enough energy to care. A little mud seems like a small sacrifice for a space so peaceful. He doubts he would ever be bothered here. He could stay forever in this little ring of oak trees next to the tinkling river, in this valley in the mountains. He imagines the grass growing over him, moss blanketing him from the world until he was just part of the landscape.

His thoughts turn to what his mother might have thought of this place, and then he veers his mind away from that path as quickly as possible. Nothing good, he’s sure. While they were on the run in Europe they had taken advantage of the big cities where they would remain faceless and forgotten amidst the hustle and bustle of city life. If she had seen him in this tiny town in the middle of nowhere in the company of Kevin Day, of all people, she probably would have just killed him herself. 

But his life on the run seems like a whole lifetime ago, and while some old habits are hard to break, his years in Witsec have made him… complacent, almost. Without the constant, all-encompassing adrenaline-fueled drive to keep moving and stay hidden in order to stay alive, Neil had just grown apathetic. There was no one to keep him going, no one who cared about his survival. As far as he’s aware, the only people who even wanted him alive are Stuart and Agent Browning, and one of them is getting paid for it.

He’s so tired, and the grass is much softer than he had expected.

He wakes hours later judging by the position of the sun in the sky, though it’s hard to tell thanks to the thick layer of grey clouds blanketing the horizon. After a yawn and a nice long stretch, he climbs to his feet.

It really is beautiful here, he can’t help but think as he takes one last look around the trees before he heads back to the guest house. The trees must be ancient, because their roots burst out of the ground in some places and twist into odd shapes. Blue and yellow wildflowers are dotted all around, peeking shyly through the grass.

Neil stretches his back and makes a small noise as his bones make a satisfying cracking sound. He takes one last look around him, and then sets back off across the fields at a gentle run.

By the time he reaches the laneway leading up to the guest house, Neil’s breaths are coming in great heaving gasps. His thighs feel like liquid fire, and his knees are trembling - he’s almost embarrassed by how out of shape he is. A few years ago, running up a small mountain like that would have been virtually no problem to him. Now, he feels as though he’s about to keel over. He struggles to get both his breathing and his rubbery legs under control as he approaches the guest house, but he’s not entirely sure he succeeds.

Inside, Eileen is sitting on one of the couches and scribbling something down in a notebook. She looks up when Neil walks in, and her eyes widen at the sight of him. Her expression makes him look down at himself, and he takes in his ruined shoes, mud-splattered legs, and overall sweaty and dishevelled appearance.

“I went for a walk.” he says redundantly.

“You look like you’ve been dragged backwards through a bush.” Eileen puts her pen down. “Shoes off. Go shower. Dinner is in an hour.”

Since that’s pretty solid advice, Neil does as she says. He’s inordinately grateful that his room has an ensuite bathroom, and he locks both the room door and the bathroom door before he strips and climbs into the shower.

After, he leaves the dirty clothes in a corner in the bathroom and goes to search for some clean clothes in his duffel. The bag is where he left it and all the clothes are neatly folded inside, but Neil stops cold anyway. Old habits die hard, and Neil notices that the tags of his clothes are all neatly flattened down, despite him having carefully folded them all in half. Someone has been in his room, searching through his things.

The flare of sharp panic is instant, and leaves an acidy taste in his mouth. Quick on its heels though is rational thought - _Minyard_. It must have been. The guest house is too isolated for it to have been a stranger, and he’s the only one who has been openly distrustful of Neil; it doesn’t take a stretch to imagine him searching Neil’s room. The urge to run is simmering in the back of Neil’s mind just like always, but he pushes it down. Andrew didn’t find anything that might suggest that Neil is in anyway not who he says he is, because there’s nothing to find. The binder he had carried full of Exy facts and stats and highlights of Kevin’s Exy career had been confiscated by the FBI, along with all the coded resources hidden in the back of it. There’s no large sums of cash, because he has a proper bank account now. All of his identification is in the name of Neil Josten. Whatever Andrew was looking for, he didn’t find it.

Neil takes a deep breath. The calm he had found on his walk had vanished, replaced by a coiling anxiety in his chest. He dresses in a haze, his mind cloudy and troubled. Andrew may not have found anything incriminating, but Neil still felt as though he had been violated. He had seen his bright little room in the guest house as a safe haven, and the idea of Andrew sneaking in and pawing through his belongings made him feel a little ill. Maybe he was stupid, to think that he could stay here.

When he leaves his room, he doesn’t even have any sort of plan for what he’s going to do next. He debates confronting Andrew, wonders if it would do any good. It would probably be better to just leave; it wasn’t as though there was anything keeping him in the guesthouse. He could pack up his things and walk back to the village and get a bus somewhere else. He’d done it countless times before.

Stepping into the lounge, his eyes are drawn to Andrew instantly. The man has his feet up on the sofa and is laying into a pint of ice cream with the fervour of a starved man. The smart move would be to leave quietly and without saying anything, but Neil’s feet carry him over without conscious thought.

Then he’s standing over Andrew and blinking down at him. His mouth opens, his tongue poised and ready for the inevitable conflict, but before the words he’ll probably end up regretting spill from his tongue he pauses.

Andrew is grinning up at him, his spoon abandoned in the cardboard carton. His eyes look dark and _anticipatory_ , as though he _wants_ Neil to start a fight with him.

Slowly, Neil closes his mouth. If Andrew wanted a confrontation, then Neil was going to be contrary just for the sake of not giving him what he was looking for. The smile he forces to his face feels a little stiff, but he hopes it looks convincing enough. “Can I sit?”

Andrew’s ever-present grin flickers before being tugged wider than ever. After a long moment of uncomfortable, prolonged eye contact, he lowers his feet with a _thump_ to the floor. Neil takes the offered space graciously, curling up into the tiny corner and being extremely careful not to touch any part of Andrew’s body. He feels Andrew’s intense gaze boring into the side of his face, as though searching for some kind of sign of deception. He wonders if Andrew knows that he noticed that someone had been in his room. Instead of showing his unease, Neil makes sure to smile as sweetly as he could manage over the tops of his knees as he curled his legs into his chest.

Andrew’s brow drops down into a frown for a fraction of a second before lifting back into a smile; Neil couldn’t help but wonder at how it must feel to have your mind held hostage in a cage of forced euphoria. He pushes the thought away roughly -- feeling sympathy for Minyard was a dangerous game, one that he has no interest in playing.

“For you.” says Andrew, before he tosses something onto Neil’s chest.

Neil’s flinch is violent and the result of bone-deep instinct, his body reacting before his mind even processes something coming his way. He hopes against reason that Andrew didn’t notice but that’s unlikely, considering the intensity of his unwavering gaze. Still, he didn’t say anything about it. Neil peers at the thing on his chest -- it’s a little yellow paper packet, with _Dip Dab_ blazoned across the top in bubble writing. The contents look to consist exclusively of white sherbet sugar and a red lollipop. 

Upon closer inspection, Neil can see evidence of the same powdered sugar coating Andrew’s black shirt sleeves. He raises an eyebrow, a little nonplussed. “Thank you.” He says, though his confusion makes it sound a bit like a question.

Andrew just grunts and turns his attention back to demolishing his ice cream. In the ensuing silence, Neil wonders if he made the right decision to avoid accusing Andrew of going through his things. Maybe he should have put up a fight, shown him that he’s not an easy target that can just be pushed around or walked over. But what if that just encouraged Andrew to think of him as a threat? Neil glances over at Andrew, only to find him already watching him.

Neil opens his mouth, ready to throw caution to the wind and just ask him what the fuck he wanted with him-

But then Kevin marches into the room, looking no worse for wear after his episode with Napper Tandy that morning. He catches sight of the ice cream carton and all the candy wrappers that litter the couch and cries, “ _Andrew,_ do you have any idea how high the _sugar content is in those_ -” and the moment is lost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I'm like smack in the middle of exams and final assignments right now, so next chapter might be a little delayed but I figured i'd get this one out there!
> 
> thanks for reading!


	4. i watch you, too

The rest of the week is quiet - on Wednesday, a Dutch couple had arrived to stay until the weekend, so Neil began to keep out of the house as much as possible. Most days during the week he heads down to the ring of trees in the valley and dozes there before jogging back to the guest house, inevitably covered in mud and breathing raggedly. It’s the happiest he’s felt in ages.

Despite his best efforts, however, he can’t get Andrew out of his head. Co-existing in the same house as someone who watches him with such suspicion and has violated his privacy makes him feel anxious every moment of the day. It feels as though Andrew is watching his every move, just waiting for him to make a wrong step. The only time he feels any relief is when he gets away from the house on one of his runs, but even then it’s only temporary.

He takes his meals late; Eileen grumbles about it, but she sets a plate of food aside for him and reheats it when he appears an hour or so after the others have eaten. He’s out of the house for a large part of the day, and when he returns covered in mud and sweat he keeps out of the way of Kevin and Andrew. He’s not being particularly subtle about his avoidance -- a few times Kevin has tried to start up a conversation about pro Exy teams and Neil has just ducked right out underneath his waving arms. Still, it’s better to have a mildly offended Kevin than a rabidly protective Andrew.

Things are, for the time being, quiet. On a wet and dreary afternoon Neil finds a little barn around the back of the guest house, with stone walls and a corrugated rusty steel roof. It’s chilly and damp and smells strongly of wet hay, but Neil sits inside the doorway and watches the rain pour down outside. It’s times like these he wishes he had a book to read, or just something to do to while away the hours. It was one of the most difficult things to get used to after joining Witsec; he had never had so much _free time_ before. It was difficult to know what to do with himself.

The smell of wet grass and the sound of the rain is relaxing, despite the less than comfortable damp of the barn. He lays down amongst the rotting hay and stretches out. His hamstrings twinge a little; he had been running up the side of the mountain everyday on his way back from the valley and while his body wasn’t exactly thanking him for it, he wasn’t quite as out of breath as he had been the first time. Both his legs ache in the best way possible, and he feels ridiculously satisfied with himself as he stretches his arms over head and yawns.

He lays in the drafty barn until the rain starts to let up, watching the dark clouds roll overhead and the trees sway in the wind. By the time the rain has lightened to a light drizzle it’s begun to get dark outside, and so he drags himself to his feet and stretches his back before making his way through the wet grass. He doesn’t know how long he had laid there in the barn for, but Eileen’s car is gone from the driveway by the time he gets back to the house. Everything is quiet as he toes his dirty shoes at the door, and he doesn’t see or hear anyone as he pads his way to the kitchen. It’s odd -- so far in the week he’s been there, he hasn’t seen Eileen or the others leave so late in the evening.

The fridge is stocked with bottled water thanks to Kevin’s refusal to drink the tap water, and Neil has been pilfering a bottle a day after his runs but thankfully Kevin hasn’t appeared to have noticed. He takes one now and cracks it open as he leans against the counter. He’s annoyed to find himself unnerved by the silence in the house. Usually, there is a constantly running background noise of Eileen’s crackling old radio playing traditional Irish songs, or of Kevin’s running commentary on a book he was reading or his loud complaints about Andrew not listening to him. Even the lack of Andrew’s manic laughter is a little disconcerting. Neil chugs the water irritably, but his mouth had been so dry that it almost hurts when the water splashes into the back of his throat. 

Neil presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth and makes a face. There’s a gritty aftertaste in his mouth, and he takes another quick chug of water to try and wash it down. When that doesn’t work, he just sets the half empty bottle down on the counter. The daily runs up the mountain have caught up to him, and he forces his exhausted body into the lounge, where he collapses on one of the cushy couches. It’s a good thing that everyone seems to be out of the house, Neil decides, because that means that he can take a nap right here on the comfortable sofa before they return.

He’s only just closed his eyes when a low voice says next to his ear, “Feeling sleepy?”

Startled, Neil jerks hard. He stumbles off the couch clumsily, his mind several steps ahead of his body. “The fuck-?” he blurts, and is surprised to hear his words come out slurred even to his own ears.

Andrew is standing by the couch -- Neil hadn’t even heard him enter the room, which sends a sharp shiver of panic down his spine. His mouth is stretched in a grin, but his eyes are dead and dark and the smile looks to be slipping by the second. “Neil.” he says, and bounces three times on his toes in time with his words, “Neil, Neil, Neil. I want to talk to you.”

It takes Neil an embarrassingly long time to figure out what was happening. He thinks back to the gritty taste in his mouth after the water and clenches his jaw. He was so _stupid_. “How did you know which bottle I was going to take?”

“I didn’t.” Andrew replies, full of cheer. “I drugged all of them. The orange juice too, just in case.”

Neil’s mind is going into overdrive on panic and fear, but his thoughts are steadily turning murky and clouded. It felt like his head was full of sand, the weight of it impossibly heavy on his neck. “Wh’dya want?” he manages to croak out.

“Don’t go to sleep just yet.” Andrew’s voice has turned silky and deadly as he crouches down by where Neil has fallen on the floor. “Like I said, I just want to talk. I’m going to ask some questions, and you’re going to give me some answers. How does that sound?”

“Fuck you.” Neil mumbles.

“Excellent.” Andrew grins savagely. “Who are you?”

“Neil Josten.” 

“Who are you _really_? I know a liar when I see one.”

“I’m Neil Josten.” Neil repeats, closing his eyes against the way the world has gone blurry. He clings desperately to the truth of it. He _is_ Neil Josten. It doesn’t matter what lies Andrew can read from his face, Neil Josten will never be one of them.

“Why are you here?”

“Told you.” Neil mumbles pitifully, then hates himself for how pathetic he sounded. When he speaks again, he forces his voice to be stronger. “Needed to get away. Had to get away.”

“From what?” Andrew presses, his eyes narrowed and alert.

“Was supposed to go to my uncle,” says Neil, avoiding the question, “But…” he trailed off with a sigh, his head rolling on his shoulders.

“But what?” Andrew prompts. His index finger is tapping an impatient little rhythm on his knee, and Neil finds himself fixated on the pattern of it.

“Dunno.” Neil doesn’t want to talk anymore. He wants to get away from Andrew immediately, before he says something he’ll regret. His head feels light, as though he’s about to float away at any minute. Andrew is still staring at him, and Neil realises he isn’t going anywhere until he’s satisfied. “Can’t explain it. Just… needed someth’n different.”

“What do you want with Kevin?”

Neil huffs out a humourless laugh, his head rolling back without his permission until he was staring at the ceiling. He can’t figure out how to get his head back to where it’s supposed to be, so he tells the ceiling, “I don’t want _anything_ from Kevin.”

“I see you watching him.”

That was news to him -- did he watch Kevin? As far as he was concerned, he had spent the entire week avoiding Kevin to the best of his ability. But he supposed when he turned his mind to the moments in between, in the early mornings or the late evenings when he caught sight of Kevin stretching on the porch or chatting with Eileen or going on a spiel about his latest book, he found himself watching Kevin for any hint of recognition. Sometimes it seemed like Kevin was an entirely different person who had lived an entirely different life; if Kevin didn’t remember him, did his past self really exist? If he didn’t exist in the eyes of others, maybe he had faded from being known at all. 

He supposed he did watch Kevin. Observing the passion in Kevin’s eyes, his hands, his movements when he talked about Exy made him feel a little hollow inside. He didn’t think he himself had ever been that passionate about anything in his whole life. When he looked at Kevin like that he couldn’t help but wonder if _he_ could have been that impassioned about something if his mother had never taken him and ran. 

But Kevin wasn’t the only one he watched like that; Andrew’s mania may have been chemically manufactured, but his single-minded determination to keep Kevin safe was a hundred percent authentic. Neil didn’t understand it, no matter how much he observed. Everything he had heard about Andrew Minyard had suggested he was dangerous, psychotic, and violent. While his drugs dulled his mind and kept him in a constant state of euphoria, it did nothing to lessen his deadly protective streak. Andrew had the potential to be the best goalkeeper in Class I Exy despite the subpar performance of the Palmetto Foxes as a team, but he didn’t seem to give a shit about that. Neil wondered why Kevin had caught Andrew’s attention, why Andrew had followed him all the way across the sea to this tiny island.

Neil didn’t know how to go about explaining this to Andrew, especially when it felt as though his mind was made of spun sugar. The best he can manage is, “I watch you, too.”

Since he’s still staring at the ceiling, all he can see of Andrew’s reaction is an aborted movement out of the corner of his eye, like a full body twitch. “Do you?” Andrew’s voice is steady, but the calm sounds forced. Neil wonders if he’s getting angry, and forces his head up into a proper position so he can see his face. When he tries to focus, he sees that Andrew is watching him very carefully, as though each one of his movements is being catalogued. 

“Yeah.” he slurs, blinking rapidly in a weak attempt to force his gaze to focus.

A funny look passes over Andrew’s face, but it’s long gone before Neil can attempt to decipher it. Andrew’s mouth opens, but then he closes it again and appears to consider carefully before saying, “Are you going to be a problem?”

“Me?” asks Neil, pointing to his own face. His depth perception is skewed thanks to whatever Andrew had put in the water, so he ends up poking his own cheek.

Andrew’s mouth flattens, before lifting up into a smile again. “Oh, Neil. You are so _annoying_.”

“Haven’t even done anything.” Neil mumbles, having lost track of the conversation. “What’re we talkin’ bout?”

“I want to know,” Andrew’s voice drops low and his smile drops with it as he leans in close, his breath ghosting against Neil’s cheek, “if you are going to cause trouble for me.”

Neil blinks at him, a little bewildered by their sudden proximity. “That depends,” he says, enunciating his words very carefully and in such a way that probably comes across as obnoxious, “on what you mean by ‘trouble’.”

At that, Andrew withdraws from Neil and sits on his knees, watching him carefully. “What the fuck.” he says, very softly and so quietly that Neil doesn’t think he’s meant to hear. When he speaks again his voice is stronger, “If I think you are a risk to Kevin, I will kill you.”

Neil recognises a threat when he hears one, and that’s not what this is. This is a promise. His head lolls to the left, and his eyelids feel like they’re being weighed down by stones. He peers at Andrew through half open eyes. “Do you ever think about anything other than Kevin?”

“Frequently.” Andrew says through clenched teeth. 

Neil can’t help but feel as though they’re having two entirely different conversations, and his drugged mind can’t keep up with what Andrew is talking about. He _knew_ he was justified in his avoidance of the man, but he hadn’t foreseen Andrew going to such lengths to confirm any suspicions he might have had. Any righteous anger he might have felt is well beyond his reach now, his thoughts soupy and slow. “You didn’t have to drug me, y’know.” he mumbles, closing his eyes again. His stomach lurches, and he wonders if he’s about to get sick. It would be kind of satisfying, to vomit all over Andrew. He enjoys the mental image of it.

“I needed answers.”

“Y’could have _asked_.”

“Would you have answered truthfully?” Andrew’s expression is as neutral as it can be with his smile, but his words sound like a challenge.

“Depends on how nice you asked.” The words don’t come out as sarcastic as he had intended, the drugs absorbing all the bite.

Andrew’s jaw does a complicated twitch/clench sort of movement, but then he’s leaning in again. “What do you _want_? Why are you here?”

“I just want to stay here for a while,” Neil says on an exhale. He feels like he’s about to pass out. “I like it here.”

There’s a pause for several long seconds. Neil is about to fall straight asleep when Andrew speaks again, “You can stay,” he says, words measured, “But if you prove to be a threat, I will destroy you.” And to prove his point, a blade appears in his hand and points to Neil’s stomach.

Neil’s mind goes blank. The only thing he’s able to register is _knife!_ , and then he’s lashing out with his legs and stumbling out of the room as fast as his legs can carry him. He thinks maybe Andrew shouts after him, but his mind is full of panicked static and he’s running on pure instinct. He blinks and he’s out of the house, running down the garden path on legs that feel like they have two cinderblocks attached at the ankles instead of feet.

The landscape is different in the dark, but he finds the gate hidden in the hedgerow and climbs clumsily over it, scraping his knee as he goes. On the other side he begins running again, petrified that Andrew might be pursuing him, chasing him with the knife. He splashes through muddy puddles, remnants of the heavy rain earlier, and almost breaks his ankles on the uneven rocky path. He slips in the mud several times, but clambers to his feet and runs on each time.

He doesn’t make it to the second gate that leads down the mountain, stumbling instead into the woods and falling to his knees. Every inch of him is trembling, and his skin has broken out into a cold sweat. The damp forest floor beneath him is steadily soaking through the knees of his sweatpants, but he hardly notices. It feels as though his mind is miles away, and as he curls up on the ground he imagines he can feel his scars burning, his mother’s fists clenched tight in his hair, and the name _‘Junior’_ whispered over and over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> poor neil :(
> 
> thank you so much for reading!


	5. Relax, runaway

When Neil opens his eyes he’s nearly blinded by a slant of sunlight glaring directly into his face. Groaning, he rolls over onto his side, only to get a faceful of leaves. Awareness comes in waves; first comes the realisation that every muscle in his body is _throbbing_ , and he has several sharp, stinging cuts on his arms and legs. His head aches and pounds, and his mouth and throat feel as though they’ve been coated in sand. Then the memories of the night before come trickling in, and he has to force himself to take several deep inhales to remain calm.

_You can stay_ , Andrew had told him right before pressing a knife to his gut.

He had been given the all clear to stay, and then he had bolted like a crazed deer. Had his running voided the offer? He shakes his head in disgust and climbs to his feet when he realises he’s still trying to figure out how to stay in the guest house after everything that had happened. Even if he had managed to convince Andrew that there was nothing to him but what meets the eye, his reaction to Andrew’s knife would surely raise some questions.

_Or would it?_ , Neil wonders, staggering his way out of the little wooded area he had apparently slept in. What was a normal reaction to being threatened with a knife? Maybe he had reacted in a way that was perfectly rational and Andrew wouldn’t think twice about his running away.

The sun is peeking over the mountains and lazily reflecting in the basin of the lake below but for the first time since he had started doing his daily runs, Neil doesn’t pause to admire the view. He walks on aching, socked feet, and wrinkles his nose every time he steps into a muddy puddle and feels the cold slimy wetness spread through his socks. A particularly nasty scratch on his left shin oozes a slim trickle of blood down his leg, and seems to throb with every step he takes. When he reaches the gate in the hedge he can’t help but notice the drying streaks of blood on the metal, almost hidden by the discolouration of the rust. It leaves his stomach feeling a little unsettled, and serves as an uncomfortable reminder that this place was not as safe as he had thought. 

When Neil finally crests the little hill and comes into view of the guest house, he pauses a moment in order to regulate his breathing and figure out how he’s going to play this. Lies didn’t come so easily to his tongue anymore -- years of isolating himself and going to great lengths to avoid human interaction had dulled his social skills, and he wasn’t confident in his ability to spin a lie that would be believable anymore. 

No ideas come to mind, so he steels himself and starts towards the house. In the dawn light the house and gardens is awash with an orangey pink light, and it looks like something from a storybook. Neil determinedly does not look, and marches himself straight into the house. He finds himself hoping that everyone is still in bed so that he has a little bit more time to prepare himself, but that particular hope is dashed as soon as he opens the front door and hears movement and voices from the kitchen.

Exhaling softly, Neil takes a short moment to enjoy the heat of the house after the damp chill of the outside early morning air. He notices for the first time that he’s shivering, which gets him moving quietly across the lounge and down the hallway to his room. His socks squelch wetly on the wooden floors, and he’s probably leaving muddy footprints behind but he can’t bring himself to care. He’ll clean up after himself later, hopefully before Eileen could see the mess. When he slips into his room, the first thing he does is take off his wet and dirty socks and fire them into the corner. He follows them up with his tracksuit bottoms and hoodie, and stands shivering in just his briefs for a few seconds before throwing them into the corner too. He dresses quickly in grey sweatpants and a red hoodie, a nearly identical outfit to his ruined one but in different colours. The relief of being in dry, warm clothes is like a physical blow. He takes a moment to savour the soft cloth against his skin, before he decides that he’s stalling and the longer it takes him to confront Andrew the worse this is all going to be.

Neil winces at the dirty marks he’d left on the floor in the hallway, but continues down to the kitchen. As he nears, he can hear Eileen’s voice sharply ringing out, “Where’s my orange juice, Andrew?”

His feet slow almost subconsciously at the sound of Andrew’s giggled “So quick to accuse me, Eileen!”, but he forces himself forwards. It’s better to get it over with, he tells himself, poking his head in the door of the kitchen. Kevin is eating a yoghurt at the kitchen counter and scowling at Andrew who is smiling innocently at Eileen, who is also scowling at him. The double force of those scowls could have struck a lesser man dead, but Andrew seems to find it funny.

Neil hesitates another few seconds, before edging into the room with a quiet, “Good morning”. His throat is dry as hell, and his voice comes out throaty and ragged.

Eileen breaks off her scowl and looks over to Neil in surprise. It occurs to him that this is the first time he’s allowed himself to be in the kitchen at the same time as everyone else in a week, and Eileen has obviously noticed. She doesn’t comment though, simply gives him a soft smile. “Good morning, Neil. Sit down, pet, I’ll get you some eggs.”

“Thank you.” Neil murmurs, shifting on his feet and glancing under his eyelashes at Andrew. He’s already watching him, head tilted to the side and sharp hazel eyes boring into his face. His smile is no more menacing than usual, and Neil can’t read any outright threat in his body language. Confused now, Neil looks at him properly. Andrew is watching him carefully, but he doesn’t seem ready to break out into violence at any given moment. Nor does he look particularly inclined to start threatening him if he doesn’t leave immediately.

After another few moments of mutual staring, Andrew’s mouth twitches. “Have a nice run?”

Neil flushes, embarrassed and angry at himself for freaking out and revealing such an obvious weakness in front of Andrew. He doesn’t get to answer though, because Eileen is clicking her tongue disapprovingly. “There’s no sense in running at such an ungodly hour in the morning before it’s properly light out. You’re lucky you didn’t break your neck.”

“Yeah.” Neil agrees, but doesn’t break eye contact with Andrew. 

“Eat quickly, I want to go in the next twenty minutes.” Kevin says, setting aside his yoghurt.

It takes Neil a few moments to realise that Kevin is speaking to him. “What?” he asks, blinking stupidly at him. He’s put so much energy into avoiding Kevin for the past week that being spoken to directly makes his mind short-circuit.

“Andrew said that when you came back from your run, you would join us.” Kevin leaned over Eileen to grab a banana, ignoring her as she swatted at his chest to get him to move aside. “Eat and then get ready to go.”

“Where are we going? Thank you,” he adds hastily as Eileen passes him a plate of scrambled eggs with toast on the side.

Kevin doesn’t seem inclined to answer, so Neil starts shoveling eggs into his mouth. He only gets a few bites in before Eileen is shoving a mug of tea into his hands and ushering him over to sit at the kitchen counter. She hands him a carton of milk and then ruffles his hair, a bewildering move that leaves him blinking at her in confusion. He wonders if the tea is safe to drink, but he can’t imagine tiny old Eileen drugging him. Still, that’s not to say that she wouldn’t. He hasn’t survived this long by being careless, but he’s sore and tired and hungry and his throat is so _so_ dry that he’s pretty much willing to risk it.

He unscrews the cap on the milk carton and moves to add some to his tea, but he’s barely lifted it before it’s snatched right out of his hands by Andrew with a “Yoink!”

“Andrew!” Eileen snaps, but her voice is significantly void of heat. “Give the man milk for his tea.”

“Mmm, milk is a no go, Aunt Eileen!” Andrew says cheerfully as he empties the carton down the sink.

Eileen lets out a long-suffering sigh, but says nothing. Neil sips his plain tea and watches Andrew shake the carton empty. He’s not sure he understands the man at all. He wonders if Andrew is going to punish him later, when he goes with him and Kevin to wherever it is they’re going. He wonders if he’s allowed to refuse, and then figures that there’s no point. If Andrew is going to hurt him, he’ll hurt him whether he goes with them or not. He could try to run, but he’s hurt and tired and the village is a two hour walk away. Andrew had said he could stay -- maybe he still meant it.

He finishes his eggs, then goes to get his shoes.

  


* * *

  


They’re in a field.

Neil hadn’t noticed before, but around the back of the house there was a little dirt path leading down and away from the guest house surrounded by overgrown hedgerow. Kevin had marched confidently down the slope, trailed by a reluctant Neil and a bouncy Andrew, until they reached a gate tied closed with a little loop of blue rope. Throwing aside the rope and pushing the gate open, Kevin had herded them into a field.

The wide, grassy expanse is dew damp and glistening in the amber dawn light, and the perimeters of the field are edged with stacked stone walls to separate them from the other fields that lie in the distance, making up a pretty little patchwork of land. At either end of the field are what looks like odd H-shaped goalposts without any nets. Neil looks out at the view and breathes steadily, hyper-aware of the presence of the other two at his side.

Kevin wastes no time admiring the surroundings; he makes a beeline for a sports bag that’s been left under the shelter of a hawthorn tree and begins rooting around in it. Neil watches him with a frown, curious but unwilling to ask what the hell they were planning on doing. He can’t ignore Andrew’s looming presence at his shoulder for long, and eventually he turns to him and eyes him distrustfully. “What do you want?” he asks, keeping his voice low so Kevin can’t hear.

Andrew hums long and slow, making a big show of throwing his gaze skywards and pretending to think hard. “What do I _want_? Hmmm. That’s a difficult question to pose to a man so early in the morning.””

“Why did you do that to me last night?” Neil tries again. He wonders if there’s any point in trying to break through Andrew’s manic haze, but he’s angry and wants answers and he can’t keep the heat from his voice or the scowl from his face.

Andrew’s eyes narrow and his head tilts to the side. He looks almost contemplative, if not for the glassy quality of his eyes. “Neil.” he says his name slowly, as though trying to pick each letter apart in his mouth. “You look better when you’re angry.”

Surprise scatters Neil’s anger like dried leaves in wind, and he finds himself blinking in confusion. _‘What?’_ he wants to ask, but instead what comes out of his mouth is a muzzy “Huh?”

“No,” Andrew corrects himself with an odd little self-deprecating smile, “I shouldn’t say better. Anger makes you look real. You’re more solid when you’re angry.”

Neil forces his confusion and frustration from his face and consciously relaxes his shoulders. The self he had been trying to project since he’d arrived at the guest house wasn’t supposed to be authentic; _real_ isn’t what he wanted Andrew to see. “I can go.” he says slowly, carefully. “I’ll leave. Just give me a day to sort somewhere for me to go to.”

Despite the drug-induced glaze, Andrew’s gaze is intense and he doesn’t look away from Neil once. Neil’s not even sure he’s blinking. Whatever he sees in Neil’s face has him clicking his tongue. “I told you that you could stay. Don’t make me regret it.”

Neil exhales sharply, and turns his head to look out over the fields. The dawn light has leaked pink and red and yellow over the clouds like spilled watercolour paint, and the relief at the thought of being able to stay here feels like a physical sensation settling at the base of his throat. 

“Besides,” Andrew continues, his voice casual as he looks past Neil’s shoulder to where Kevin is still crouched under the hawthorn at the periphery of the field, “Kevin is a big baby and would throw a tantrum if you left before he got to play with you.”

“Play with-?” Neil begins, but before he can finish his question Kevin calls them over to where he’s standing beneath the tree.

There are three oddly shaped sticks laid out at his feet, and Neil feels a brief flash of panic spike through him: was he about to get clubbed to death? Maybe Andrew’s invitation to stay was bullshit, just a way of toying with him before hurting him even more. He was so stupid to trust him after the drugging incident.

His panic must have shown up on his face -- whatever Andrew sees there, he starts to laugh. “Relax, runaway. Kevin just wants to play a little game.”

“What kind of game?” Neil asks warily, keeping both men and the sticks in his field of vision.

“Have you ever heard of hurling?” Kevin’s voice is stupidly earnest, his gaze intense on Neil’s face. It doesn’t seem as though he had noticed any of the tension between Neil and Andrew whatsoever.

“No.” says Neil bluntly. His nerves are frayed and the tension in his neck and shoulders is beginning to give him a headache. He gathers up the scraps of his patience and glances at the sticks, noticing a white ball a little larger than his fist resting by Kevin’s foot. “It’s like field hockey?” Neil guesses, “Or lacrosse?”

Kevin makes a face. “I suppose.” he says grudgingly, clearly not happy with that comparison. “It’s one of Ireland’s native Gaelic sports. It’s been played for almost four thousand years and has origins in prehistoric-”

“We didn’t ask for a history lesson, Kevin.” Andrew interrupts loudly, fidgeting with the strings on his hoodie.

Kevin scowls at him, but skips over the origins of the sport all the same. He picks up one of the sticks, and Neil notices for the first time that it doesn’t really resemble a hockey stick as much as he had first thought. It’s made of a light coloured wood, and the base of the stick is flat and rounded where on an Exy racquet the net would be. “This is a hurley stick.” Kevin says, then throws the stick at Neil who just about manages to catch it. “This is the sliotar.” he picks up the ball and throws it at Neil. 

It hits Neil in the arm, heavier than he had expected, and he lets it thump to the ground. It’s like a baseball, but the stitching is more pronounced. Neil looks at it for a moment, then turns to Kevin with a frown. “Do you seriously expect me to play this with you?”

It’s Kevin’s turn to frown, but he looks genuinely confused. “Yes. Why wouldn’t you?”

“You didn’t even ask.”

It’s obvious by the look on Kevin’s face that he considers this a non-issue, but he nevertheless asks, “Will you play?”

Neil pauses, and thinks. He could say no. He wants to, just to see if Andrew would allow him to walk away from this or if he would be forced to play with Kevin as payment for being allowed to stay. His gaze trails over to where Andrew is watching them both, clearly bored with the conversation. “Do I have a choice?” he asks, addressing Kevin but watching Andrew.

It’s Andrew that answers. “Yes.” he says, his voice so firm and sure that Neil almost feels a little foolish for asking in the first place. “No one is going to make you play the stupid game.”

Neil considers that, ignoring the little offended sound that seems to escape Kevin without his permission. It’s not that he doesn’t want to play -- playing hurling with Kevin sounds… exciting. It’s not Exy, which allows Neil to fight off the rising panic at the thought of playing a sport with Kevin, but it’s similar enough to have his interest. He wants to say yes. It’s the first time in a long time that he finds himself actually _wanting_ something.

And yet. He doesn’t need to look at Andrew to know that he’s still being watched. Andrew had said he had a choice, but how can he trust him? His body aches, his head pounds, and his feet are all scratched up from running on rocky and muddy terrain in nothing but socks. Even if he did trust Andrew and Kevin, his body was in no fit state to chase a ball around a field with sticks at dawn.

Decided, Neil raises his head and looks directly at Kevin. “No.”

Kevin’s face twists. For a moment Neil thinks it’s anger, and he braces himself for the imminent fallout. It takes a few seconds to realise that it’s disappointment on Kevin’s face, and the realisation stuns him a little. He expects Andrew to say something, to threaten or force him into playing, but he just shrugs, turns, and begins walking out of the field and back towards the house.

Neil watches him go, trying to hide how wrong-footed he feels. He watches Kevin bend to pick up the equipment, and before he can stop himself he finds his mouth moving again, “Another time. Just not today.”

Kevin’s head snaps up at his words, his eyes sparkling. “Tomorrow?”

“I- no.” Neil says reflexively, startled by Kevin’s intensity. “What day is it?”

“Tuesday.”

“Right. Okay.” Neil shifts a little, stubbornly ignoring the sharp pain in his feet. “Thursday. I’ll play Thursday.”

Kevin’s hands are tight around the hurley sticks, but he nods fiercely. “We’ll play Thursday, then.”

“I don’t know the rules.” Neil says, following Kevin like a lost puppy as he marches over to the sports bag under the tree.

“It’s not hard,” Kevin says as he stows the sticks in the bag. He points at the oddly shaped posts at either end of the field. “See the H-shaped goalposts? If you hit the ball under the crossbar it’s a goal, if you hit it over the crossbar it’s a point. A goal is worth three points, because it’s easier to score over the crossbar from a distance.”

“Okay.” Neil says, carefully committing the information to memory.

“When the sliotar is on the ground, you have to either hit it or pick it up with the hurley to hit it from the air. You can pick it up with the stick and carry it in your hand, but you can only run for four steps with it and you can’t bend to pick it up off the ground. You can catch the sliotar from the air, but you can’t run with it or throw it; you have to hit it. Be careful catching it, too, that’s how people break fingers.” Kevin is speaking quickly now, the equipment abandoned by his feet. Neil gets the feeling that people rarely _asked_ Kevin to explain sports to them. Apparently Kevin notices the look of incomprehension on Neil’s face, because he slows down and makes an effort to sum up, “You’re allowed to catch the ball, strike it out of the air, kick it, pick it up with the hurley stick and carry it in the flat of the stick or in your hand for four steps. You’re _not_ allowed to pick it up off the ground with your hand, throw it, or carry it down the field. Got it?”

“Sure.” Neil says, a little hopelessly.

Kevin must take pity on him, because he says, “You’ll pick it up when we play.”

_Maybe_ , Neil thinks, looking out across the field. He notices for the first time how far away the goalposts actually are from each other, and he looks to Kevin with a frown. “This field is a little big, isn’t it?”

“Hm?” Kevin finishes stowing the equipment away, then follows Neil’s gaze. “No. Hurling pitches are roughly twice the size of standard soccer pitches. The field is ideal.”

“Right.” Neil murmurs, frowning. “Can I ask you a question?”

If Kevin is surprised at the request, it doesn’t show. He nods, then waits expectantly.

There’s dozens of questions that Neil wants so desperately to ask Kevin. _Do you remember me? Why aren’t you back in the States, playing Exy? Why did Andrew follow you here? Why is Andrew so willing to go to extreme lengths just to protect you?_

In the end, he manages to say, “Are you and Andrew…” and then trails off, not even sure exactly what he was trying to ask.

Kevin just blinks at him, uncomprehending.

“Is Andrew always like that?” Neil revises quickly. He feels like an idiot; he should have had a question actually ready.

It’s quiet for a moment as Kevin frowns. “I don’t know what he said last night,” he says at last, not meeting Neil’s eyes, “But Andrew is a man of his word. He keeps his promises.”

That wasn’t even close to what Neil had asked, but Kevin is already walking away. He watches him make his way back towards the house, then releases a deep sigh. He doesn’t even know what he was trying to find out in the first place. All he knows is that he is deeply confused by the events of last night and this morning, and that he desperately needs a nap.

He looks out over the scenery illuminated in the dawn light one last time, before turning to follow Kevin inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if anyone is wondering, kevin pestered eileen to bring him shopping for an extra hurling stick specially for neil while andrew was trying to interrogate him
> 
> as always, thank you so much for reading and for all your lovely comments! i love reading them so much, they're so encouraging! i love hearing what you think and what you'd like to see!

**Author's Note:**

> come talk to me on [tumblr!](https://andrewminyarid.tumblr.com/) or [twitter!](https://twitter.com/fairyrings)


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